SYNCHRONIZATION OF INGESTIVE BEHAVIOUR BY GRAZING DAIRY COWS

摘要

The synchronization of eating, ruminating and idling activity by lactating dairy cows glazing a perennial ryegrass-white clover sward was studied. Synchronization was defined as the number of pairs of cotes engaged in a particular activity as a proportion of the total possible number of pairs and was compared with random expectation using a kappa statistic. All three activities were significantly more synchronized than random expectation. This suggests that wherever possible individual cows should not be treated as replicates in grazing experiments.